Not this time. This time, Tim had a plan. You did not get to
be Batman’s sidekick without mastering the fine art of learning from your
mistakes. Since Selina came to live at the manor, every time Tim went
to see her, she was contorting in some damn yoga posture and…

He lost his train of thought.

Right then, yoga. Not. This. Time.

This time, he was going directly down to the cave, where Bruce had
surveillance feeds from all the security cameras around the manor.
He’d do a quick check and make sure she was brushing her cats or watching TV
or doing whatever she did when she wasn’t twisting and bending in that
leotard…

Ho boy, lost his train of thought again. That was not a good sign.

Tim briefly reconsidered the wisdom of his plan. On the one hand,
Selina Kyle was the one exception to the Bat Family’s embargo on helping him
with his paper. Tim Drake knew her, knew her as Tim Drake, so there
was no compromising himself as Robin on that score.

*** YEARS EARLIER ***

Dana Winters Drake was not what you’d call an evil stepmother—at least,
when she wasn’t possessed by a cursed Ravenna amulet, and that was just the
one time, so, y’know, not evil. She just… she had some really, really
bad ideas when it came to food—scratch that, she had some really, really bad
ideas about nutrition which led to entire meals consisting of nothing
a growing, red-blooded, American boy would call “food.” All the brown
rice and broccoli might be okay if there was a steak in sight at the end of
it, but there wasn’t. It was always more pine nuts and lentils and
tofu, or the occasional Proteins Gone Wild spree with halibut and beef
livers that made you nostalgic for the lentils and tofu. Nothing a
normal person considered, y’know, food.

That was the best thing about Bruce asking Tim to come over early.
It was probably for some new training before they set off on patrol, or
maybe an oral debriefing on the nights Robin and ‘Wing had covered for
Batman. That was often the case if Bruce didn’t like something he saw
in the logs. Tim was always getting caught between Bruce’s “my house,
my rules” and Dick’s blowing off a proper log entry because he’s the bigshot
senior crimefighter now, nobody’s sidekick, and he’ll do it his own way. So
yeah, the more Tim thought about it, this was probably going to be an
inquisition on his own logs to fill in the blanks about whatever Dick left
out in his. But first, Tim would get to stop in the kitchen and get a
hamburger or a roast beef sandwich and some loaded potato skins.
Everything a growing boy needs before taking on the dregs of Goth—Ooo.

He was just passing the door to one of the drawing rooms Bruce only used
for playboy visitors and parties. The light was on, so he glanced in
as he passed and—Ooo—he couldn’t help but notice there was a really short
dress with really long legs in there.

“Hiya,” Tim said cheerily—the really short dress had a really low back
too, and if anything, the curves of that back were even better than the
legs... “You must be a friend of Bruc-uh, of Mr. Wayne’s, I mean.”

She turned, and Tim found himself looking at the most perfectly formed
breasts he had ever seen in his life—quite possibly, the most perfectly
formed breasts anyone had ever seen in any life since the dawn of
time. Thought was no longer an option. Thought beyond “don’t
stare at them” was really, really not an option, but after a
painfully dry swallow, that cautionary thought expanded to suggest he stand
very close to the high-backed sofa.

“Tim Drake,” he answered, hoping she had asked his name, since that was a
really stupid answer if she had asked the time.

“Selina Kyle,” she said—a name Tim might have recognized if she hadn’t
leaned forward offering her hand as she said it, which bent her chest
forward a little and… and uh, uh oh, okay, ah… good move standing behind the
sofa then, wasn’t it? Just stay right there, don’t move from the waist
down, and hope she does the same. Hope—no, pray—she doesn’t
look down or go to the window or anything—window! Bat-Signal.
Oh shit! Bat-Signal! That must be why she’s here alone.
Did she say something about Bruce having stepped out? She said
something when he came in, but all he heard was “Don’t stare at them”—which
reminded him, he probably shouldn’t have his eyeballs hanging off her
nipples that way.

“Boy, Miss Kyle, I sure hope Bruce's reputation doesn't bother you,” he
managed. “I mean, he does have to rush off now and then, but it’s not
scads of busty supermodels waiting in the wings like people think. He
just has so much charity work taking up so much of his time.”

“You figure it's an emergency blood drive he's rushed off to at 8:15 on a
Friday night?” she smiled.

“Oh. Well. I can't tell you how many times he's been at one of my
father’s dinner parties and had to leave suddenly to keep the funding from
falling through for some halfway house or Ugandan orphanage. You know,
it’s business hours over there when it’s night here,” he added helpfully.

“Mhm,” Selina agreed, biting back a smile. “Those Ugandan orphans
do have a reputation for being suddenly cash poor.”

“And don't get me started on the anti-child labor efforts, surprise
inspections in all the Malaysian factories,” Tim enthused.

“He conducts those personally, does he?”

Tim’s eyes shifted around the room, trying to look anywhere except at
Selina or the window.

“Tim, it’s okay, he told me.”

“Huh?”

“It’s okay. He told me he’s Batman, I know he’s gone to answer the
signal. He’s going to call and let me know if dinner is cancelled or
if it’s just the new commissioner going flashlight happy again because
Jervis Tetch sneezed.”

“Huh? I mean, uh… Huh?”

“Much as I would love to let you keep going, just for the entertainment
value, sooner or later you will find out I knew, and then you’d probably
wonder why I didn’t stop you after the Ugandan orphanage.”

“Uh… OH! Oh my,” Tim’s eyes suddenly widened as he realized
where, exactly, he knew those breasts from. “Uh, right, uh, no… no,
no… big misunderstanding. Big. Huge misunder-he probably told
you that he was Batman because you were in that show, right, the
Cat-Tits-TALES, Cat-Tales, where you were the, uh, Cat… So he might
have tit you—TOLD you that he was, uh, because you might like… leaving, I’m
leaving now, and I will, um, see Bruce another time, and uh… Leave message.
If you see him first, just leave a message that I… died.”

“Breathe, Tim, you’re not breathing. That will catch up with you.
The lungs rebel. Nice deep breath. Now… You saw Cat-Tales?”

“NO! No, of course not, I am an ordinary high school kid who
doesn’t get out to see a lot of live theatre. No interest in that kind
of thing, especially anything about, y’know, capes, bats, who cares.
No. I play video games and uh, what else do I do? Study. I study
a lot. Civil war. Blue and Gray. Fort Sumter.
General Lee. They lost. Bye now.”

“Tim,” Selina said in the calm tone used to talk someone down from a
ledge. “You saw my show, and you told ‘Wing you thought I should add a
Harley Quinn impersonation, because you think the Marilyn Monroe
squeak-laugh she does is funny. And it was. I added it the third
week of the run, huge laughs every night. Thank you. That was a
great suggestion.”

“No, see, I’m leaving now,” Tim insisted, clinging to the one clear
thought that remained now that staring at Selina’s breasts ceased to be a
problem. “If you see Bruce…”

“I’ll tell him you’ve died,” Selina nodded, giving up.

*** YEARS LATER ***

Tim Drake knew Selina Kyle, and Selina Kyle did the off-Broadway show
Cat-Tales. So whether you believed she was really Catwoman or just
a really ballsy actress, the contents of that show were up for grabs as far
as his paper. It was just like the Flash interview in the Keystone
Star, only better, since Selina was a lot more entertaining on subjects like
“the team-up.” Some of that was certainly just Selina being Selina,
and some of it, Tim was sure, was the fact that she didn’t have to go to the
Watchtower the next day and sit through a League meeting with Wonder Woman.

So Cat-Tales was definitely the key to the section on the
hero-hero and hero-villain team-up, but he didn’t really remember the
details of her story about teaming up with Huntress. He also wanted to
find out if the stories changed at all in the course of doing the show.
Just because she didn’t mention Robin the night he saw Cat-Tales
didn’t mean she couldn’t have added something about their team-up later.
It would be so perfect if there was anything about the truce they agreed to.
And it’s not like she didn’t make little additions as the show went along.
She added that Harley Quinn impression… Once again, Tim briefly lost his
train of thought.

Anyway, he had to talk to her and 1) get a refresher about the Huntress
team-up, 2) see if she ever mentioned Robin, and then 3) get her kinda-sorta
permission before he went and cited her in his paper. Bruce’s
disapproval was one thing, but Bruce was going to make his life miserable no
matter what. With Selina, there was that thing with the whip.
Catwoman had not done the whip thing since Selina took up with Bruce, and
for that, Drake generations yet unborn rejoiced.

*** YEARS EARLIER ***

Tim reached his room, flicked on the TV, and sat at his desk before the
com went off. He had opened a textbook—Introductory French—but none of
the words on the page quite penetrated his brain… Did students in Paris eat
nothing but ham sandwiches? It didn’t seem very likely, but the ham
sandwich with cheese and the ham sandwich without cheese seemed to be the
two options—as well as the focus of an absurd number of conversations…
Quelle sorte de fromage aimez-vous… avec… a muffled beep
drew his attention.

:: I told you to come over early. :: the deep Bat-voice graveled.

“Yeah, that didn’t work. You were out—” he began.

:: You know to wait when that happens.::

“—and you had company. Boy was that a shock.”

“I know.” The voice sounded simultaneously in the com and at the
window, then the com went dead as Batman held it up and clicked it off.
“That wasn’t how I intended for you to meet. You still could have
waited. Gone down to the cave or met me in town.”

“And confirm everything she was saying?! Go right down to
the Batcave or, or change into—Are you crazy?! That’s what she was waiting
for!”

“She was waiting for me to call and tell her if our date was cancelled.
Tim, this isn’t how I meant to tell you, but after that show, I began seeing
more of her ‘off-duty.’ It reached a point where… where the
division was no longer acceptable to me. I wanted her in both
halves of my life.”

“But she’s Catwoman!”

“That’s the half where it was always going to begin, Tim. Anything
real had to start there. Look, there are details I won’t discuss, but
I did intend to tell you tonight and give you the option of coming upstairs
to meet her face-to-face.”

“Been there, done that,” Tim said acidly.

Batman’s lip twitched.

“Maybe you should try it again,” he said simply.

Tim’s eyes just bored into his.

“What about my dad, hm? Doctors say he’s got another year in the
chair at the very least. And he managed to get himself kidnapped
and poisoned walking on two legs anyway, so what about him?”

“What about him, Tim? What happened with your parents predates your
becoming Robin, it had nothing to do with masked identities.”

“He’s still awfully vulnerable, Bruce.”

“No more than he was a week ago,” Bruce said gently. “Tim, you must
know I would never do anything to put your family at risk. When you
became a part of this, you accepted my way of doing things and that means
accepting my judgment. When I tell you to go around to the
alley and check the back entrance, you know who is telling you, you
know the lifetime of expertise and experience behind that decision.
This is no different.”

“Bruce, this is totally different. I mean that dress she was in. I
didn’t think it could get worse than that catsuit, but there they were!
I’m not sure I got my name right.”

This time Bruce suppressed the lip twitch before he spoke again.

“It isn’t any different, Tim. Not at all. My life has
been protecting my identity since the day I put this mask on. Because
it wasn’t just my life, it was Alfred’s, and later Dick’s, and now yours and
Barbara’s and Cassie’s. Revealing it is not something I’m capable of
doing lightly, not in the throes of passion, not in the throes of anything.
Having lived these years the way I have, it is not possible for me to have
done what I did frivolously, do you understand? Now, either you trust
my judgment or you don’t. If you do, I would like you to come back to
the house and meet Selina. If you don’t, then you should do some hard
thinking before you put on that costume again.”

“OH COME ON! Because I’m not cool with the group hug welcoming your
new girlfriend the cat thief!”

“Because if you don’t trust my judgment, then you shouldn’t be taking my
orders in the field. There is plenty of time to think now: come back
to the house or don’t, and if you don’t, you can always meet her another
time. That is not an option in the field and you know it. You do
not have the time to mull it over, case by case. You have to make your
decision in an instant, and if you’re not happy with the result, there
aren’t any do-overs the next day.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Tim murmured. “It just… It would have been nice
to have some kind of warning—and yeah, I know, stuff is always going to
happen without warning, it’s not a perfect world, expect the unexpected,
blah blah blah…”

“You’re learning,” Batman said proudly.

“What was the signal lit for, anyway?”

“Victor Frieze was released from Arkham this morning. The
commissioner thought I should be informed.”

“Oh come on! Like we can’t find that out on our own? Don’t
tell Barbara. God. First this dufus replaces her father, then he
doesn’t think Oracle is monitoring Arkham admissions and releases?
She’ll wipe out his credit, suspend his driver’s license, and sell his
mortgage to LexCorp.”

“Oracle…” Batman said thoughtfully. “That’s a very good idea.”

“Selling the new commissioner’s mortgage to LexCorp?”

“Tim, you are not invited back to the house to see Selina tonight.
First, you should have a talk with Barbara.”

Catwoman was every inch the predator her name implied: she hunted, she
prowled her territory until she caught a whiff of something she wanted.
Once she targeted her prey, she stalked it with cunning, chased it down with
as much speed and tenacity as was required, and if necessary, she would
fight off any competing predators, scavengers or crimefighters in order to
keep what was rightly hers.

This naturally predatory spirit did not extend to the one hunt indulged
in by every non-criminal in Selina Kyle’s ultra-chic upper eastside
neighborhood: she had never hunted down designer sample sales. She was
too hippy and far too busty for most pieces stitched together for a size 0
model to walk down the runway. Plus, the one time a caper took her
backstage at a fashion show, she saw firsthand the cloud of perspiration,
cigarette smoke, and hairspray that permeated everything behind the scenes.
The thought of wearing the castoffs from that nightmare world next to her
own skin rivaled the Ratcatcher episode for disgusting gag reflex no-no.
Kitty would just pick up an extra Goya the next time she was in Barcelona
and go on paying retail on 57th Street, thank you very much,
meow.

But then on Monday there she was, coming back from Raoul’s coffee cart
with her double espresso, and there was Binky Sherborn waiting at the
elevator. A shared elevator with Binky often provided a few promising
Catwoman targets, so Selina wasted no time getting her talking.
Today’s bulletins had nothing to do with soon to be ex-husbands hiding
assets, however, nor did they prophesy who would be wearing Harry Winston at
the next glitterati fundraiser (note to self: when The Cat goes back to
business as usual, Wayne Foundation fundraisers are now off-limits). But
today’s Binky prattle had nothing to interest Catwoman. Binky was just
enthused about the upcoming sample sales…

Now, Selina had to wonder about that: Binky couldn’t wear a size 0 any
more than she could. When pressed, it turned out Binky didn’t go for
suits, separates or evening gowns. She went for handbags and shoes.

“Manolo Blahniks for $100?” Selina gasped—in precisely the same tone she
once used to thank Felix Faust for a bead of kryptonite.

“Oh that’s nothing,” Binky laughed—which, eerily, is exactly what Faust
said. If Catwoman had only been more sympathetic about his wife not
understanding him, there’s no guessing what wonders he might have conjured
next.

Actually, on second thought, one could guess, and the prospect wasn’t
nearly as appealing as what Binky was saying: the YSL sale was Wednesday,
and if Selina wanted to get on the list, Binky would be happy to arrange it.
Her “spies” said there would not only be the jeans, sweaters, coats, and
Rive Gauche gowns (that neither woman could squeeze into), there would be
“tons” of shoes and maybe a few handbags.

Selina bit her lip, thinking it over for all of six seconds. She
hadn’t gotten away with those cat icons from the auction house, and
considering the way that confrontation ended, she wasn’t going to attempt a
break-in like that again any time soon. As long as things were heating
up with Ba… Bruce. As long as things were heating up so
dramatically with Bruce... Yeah, that was quite enough to handle for
the moment. Batman had a face under that mask, a face that made her
absolutely weak in the knees, he was as off-the-scale exceptional in bed as
he was at everything else, and oh, by the way, his name was Bruce.
Enough, Kitty’s brain is full.

No really, Kitty’s brain is full. No more she can handle right
now, not the time go traipsing out to Queens to see how the MoMA had settled
into their temporary location and how the security was around Batman’s
favorite Van… God, the Van Gogh. Time was, that little encounter would
have been earth-shattering, that peek into the man under the mask would have
kept her buzzed for a year. But now, the opera house roof, the auction
house vault, his touch, his kiss, “a crimefighter loving a thief,” “My name
is Bruce…” Not just any Bruce, either. Bruce Wayne, Wayne
Manor, Wayne Enterprises, Alfred the butler, “Casanova ate fifty oysters for
breakfast every day, that’s what made him such a sex machine” “Oh yes miss,
you encountered the Fop…” So much had happened since the MoMA roof,
she’d completely forgotten about that Van Gogh.

Clearly, a night withdrawal from the GNB safe deposit boxes was not in
her immediate future, so until she got her head on straight, a bargain spree
of designer shoes might be just the thing…

*** YEARS LATER ***

Tim blinked. He double-checked the security feeds, or what
should have been a security feed on Monitor 8. It was supposed to
be Camera G14, which would be, uh… second floor, front hall, bedrooms… Ah,
well, okay, Selina’s suite.

Well that was nice of her. If the world’s greatest cat burglar
didn’t want Bruce’s security cameras spying on her in her suite, she could
have overridden the feed with anything. It could have been a tape loop
of the room when it was empty, so you wouldn’t even know you weren’t looking
at the live feed. She could have it duplicate the feed from another
camera, the dining room or the kitchen, so it looked like a snafu in the
system rather than an expert thief messing with the equipment. But of
course that wouldn’t be any fun for someone like Catwoman, would it?

Still, if she wanted to tweak Bruce’s nose, she could have rigged it to
show someone sitting at this workstation the back of his own head.
Instead, it was ESPN. That was cool! Purdue kicking Star
City’s ass, heh. Tim sat back and watched the game for a while,
keeping an intermittent eye on the other monitors in case Selina showed up.
But then Purdue fumbled, Star intercepted and was running it in for a
touchdown just as Bruce was coming through the study, so Tim didn’t know
anyone was coming down to the cave until he felt a rhythmic tap-tap on his
shoulder.

Explanations followed, and once Tim admitted he was there to see Selina,
Bruce guessed the reason.

“This is for that class you’re taking—the class you know I do not approve
of, and which no one on the team will help you with. You think Selina
will be more accommodating, either because she isn’t strictly ‘Team Bat,’ or
because she’s more open about her identity.”

“She’s more than ‘open,’ Bruce, she did a stage show. Anything she
said in Cat-Tales is as good as a quote Superman gave in the Daily
Planet. It’s fair game, anyone who has never set foot in this cave
could know it and that means I can use it.”

“Then why do you need to talk to her?” Bruce asked through clenched
teeth.

“Well first, I want to clarify some stuff she said about team-ups, and I
kinda want to get her okay before I use it. Don’t want to risk the
whip thing, you know how it is.”

“You’re asking Selina’s permission? You know I
disapprove, but—”

“Bruce, c’mon, you’re gonna make my life miserable no matter what.
Selina’s different. The best part of it for me since you two got
together, no more whip thing from Catwoman.”

*** YEARS EARLIER ***

Eggless omelets, it should be a Riddler clue. Riddle me this: How
do you make an omelet without any eggs? It was Riddler challenge, not
dinner. So Tim stopped in the kitchen on his way down to the
cave, and Alfred came through with some fried chicken. When Tim made
it down to the Batcave, Bruce was still there, watching, eh…

“Leopards?”

“Cheetahs. It’s a show Selina’s fond of, Big Cat Diary.
It’s very interesting, you should watch this. Cheetahs are
lightweight, streamlined. That hyena is substantially bigger, with the
most powerful jaws of any predator in the region. It can crunch through a
buffalo’s thighbone like a match stick, could make a meal of the cat.
She’s overmatched, both animals know it—but look, hyena’s tail goes down,
that’s a sign of submission, and… it’s leaving. This is the second
time she’s chased one off. She’s even hunted in the middle of a pride
of lions that would view her as a snack. Insanely rash, but she keeps
getting away with it. Another one of these had a lioness scaring off
two adult males.”

“Okay, we’re not talking about Wild Kingdom then, it’s lesson time.
You’re studying Catwoman’s fighting style based on this show Selina watches.
Sketching out a few protocols?”

Bruce looked up in shock.

“Of course not. My… ‘girlfriend’ I guess we should call her… likes
this show. It’s only natural to watch. Get an idea of what she
likes, presents and such down the line.”

“She likes cats, Bruce. The clue is in her name.”

“I’m just watching out of curiosity, Tim. I’m not authoring any
Catwoman protocols. I noticed some interesting parallels, that’s all.
And as someone who must occasionally fight an opponent substantially larger
and stronger, I’ll make those observations wherever I find them. I
suggest you do the same.”

“I am,” Tim said sternly—and again, Bruce stared in shock. “Bruce,
do me a favor and don’t mess this thing up with Selina. I talked to
Barbara like you said, and I’m still not completely onboard with the idea,
but if I get onboard, it’d be nice to know this isn’t going to be another
crash-and-burn if it crashes and burns. Everybody in Young Justice
looks at me funny now, because they’re sure I must have a hard drive full of
schemes to take them out. Dick’s in the same situation with the
Titans. So it’d be real nice if you didn’t go and stick it to us again
with this Catwoman thing, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Well first, ‘this Catwoman thing’ is my private life, Timothy, and it’s
not really any of your business. To the extent that it does affect you
and the others, I informed you. As for the protocols, if your
teammates in Young Justice can’t grasp the need for a fire extinguisher in a
kitchen or a lock on a gun cabinet, you would do well to reevaluate your
association with them. That said, if things would ‘crash and burn’
with Selina, I don’t think you need to worry about her reacting with shock
and horror at the revelation that Batman’s made a study of her weaknesses.
In a strange way, the Rogues seem to have a clearer perspective on the core
realities of the lives we’ve chosen than certain members of the Justice
League.”

“Oh man,” Tim said, shaking his head sadly. “Poor Selina.”

Wednesday morning, Selina and Binky set off for the YSL sample sale,
undeterred by a torrential downpour. They returned triumphant, weighed
down with shopping bags, joking about whether those wimpy Knights would go
ahead with their little baseball game tonight. Selina vaguely noticed
there was someone else standing beside Nick the doorman, but between the
rain and the umbrellas and the shopping bags—not to mention a taxi that was
taking no prisoners and a FedEx van that didn’t care who he killed—she
didn’t exactly see who it was. She just perceived a general bustle of
helpfulness getting her and Binky and the bags and the umbrellas into the
dry calm of the lobby. Only then did she see that Nick had taken
Binky’s bags while the newcomer—Tim Drake, the kid from the manor—was
carrying hers.

“Um, thanks,” she said, giving the umbrella a good shakeout before
getting into the elevator.

He said little more than “Hi” until Binky left the elevator, but as soon
as the doors closed behind her, he unburdened himself: the Gotham Knights
were not “wimpy.” The pitcher’s mound and the base paths are dirt,
they turn to mud. Plus, the ball would be heavier and harder to
catch if it was wet, harder to throw with any degree of accuracy, a wet bat
would be a lot harder to grip, and as for sliding into home…

“Point taken,” Selina conceded. “I will simply say that the
women of Gotham would never let anything as inconsequential as a little
water falling from the sky come between them and a $300 Yves St. Laurent.
From what I saw today, they wouldn’t let Killer Croc come between them and a
$300 YSL.”

Tim smiled, although he wasn’t completely comfortable with the casual
name-dropping of a name villain. By the time they reached Selina’s
door, however, he realized it was the kind of thing anyone might say.
They went inside, he set down her bags, and while she put away her umbrella,
Tim remarked on the surprising lack of cat stuff in her apartment.

“At least you guys are consistent,” Selina said under her breath.

“So, uh, I kinda made a mess of things meeting you the other night,” Tim
said frankly. “I thought I’d give it another try, if that’s okay.”

“If you like” Selina said pleasantly. “It’s not like we haven’t met
before a few dozen times, though.”

“Join the club,” Selina said, handing him a diet soda, and clinking her
can against his as if in an unspoken toast.

“Seriously?” Tim sputtered, looking at the soda can in wonder.

“It’s quite the little boys’ club you fellas have,” Selina nodded
vigorously. “And that first step into the clubhouse is a doozy.
I hadn’t caught my breath after ‘Welcome to the Batcave’—and by the way, how
exactly a costume I wore for two weeks six years ago winds up in his
trophy room, at some point that needs to be explained to me—and also by
the way, I saw my file in your little ‘bat-computer’ and there seems to be a
certain difference of opinion about my weight and measurements, which we
will also discuss at another time—I haven’t caught my breath after that
overload, he wants me to meet him at the office next day and have lunch at
the penthouse. Do you know what he has hanging next to his Picasso up
there? Another Picasso. Then comes the country club where
he springs a new personality on me. This, I later learn, is ‘the Fop,’
and because I’m apparently not filling my metaphorical loot sack with these
insights for some Hugo Strange Psychodrama Spectacular, I get tea.
Tim, seriously, you being ‘not too comfortable with all this’ is the only
halfway normal thing that’s happened all week.”

“Wow,” Tim said, swallowing.

Selina glared.

“Yeah, okay, that was kind of a meltdown. You forget about mine,
I’ll forget yours the other night.”

“Mine was understandable,” Tim said bravely. “I mean that was… that
was a really nice dress.”

“You called my show Cat-Tits, Timothy.”

“It was a really nice dress,” he repeated.

Selina managed a smile.

“Is it my imagination, or are you maybe a little more comfortable with
all this than you were ten minutes ago.”

“Nah,” Tim lied, with a wide grin. Then he turned serious.
“Look, truth is, I had a little talk with Oracle last night. She says
you’ve known who she is for a long time and you were pretty cool about it.”

“Y-yeah, I might not be cool much longer about that, because it seems
like she keeps telling the story to nosy crimefighters, and then your next
stop is here. That’s a big no-no for the people I work for.”

“Yeah, about that, you could really do me a solid.”

“Do you a solid?”

“You said the Harley Quinn idea really worked for you, right? Got
big laughs? Well, this would be a great way to pay me back.”

“I’m surprised you even heard that, it didn’t seem like your brain was
‘receiving’ at that point.”

“Well I did, it was, and this would be a great way to thank me.”

“By doing you a solid,” she said flatly.

“Right!”

“Related to an Oracle job I did a hundred years ago, before the telegraph
and penicillin.”

“Yeah, see I get a lot of ‘detective homework,’ I guess you’d call it.
Cold case stuff, filling in all the unanswered questions that the initial
investigation didn’t… Uh… No, that’s a lie. The thing is,
Selina, now that you’re involved with Bruce, it’s like you all of a sudden
have access to all this inside information, about all of us. Stuff you
really shouldn’t know—boy that sounds harsh. I mean, stuff that
Catwoman would have no way of finding out. Stuff you only know because
one of us is telling Selina. I guess I kinda want you to give
something back. Tell me—tell Tim Drake—something that Robin
shouldn’t know.”

“That’s fair—wait a minute! Wait a… Did that manipulative son of a
bitch send you here to charm the story out of me with that ‘women love me,
I’m cuddly and unthreatening’ act?”

“It is NOT an act,” Tim fumed, “I am cud—wait a minute, cuddly?
I’m not cuddly! I was trained by Batman, lady! And then
Shiva! And then Batman again to correct some of the Shiva stuff he
didn’t like.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve heard the Shiva stories, kid. Lady Death Incarnate
says you are cute as a button.”

“This is a test,” Tim announced in the same way you assure yourself an
in-progress nightmare is just a dream. “It’s a test, and if I pass, I
get the Parallel Mayhem story.”

“Yes,” Selina said finally, unable to suppress a laugh. “You do get
the story, not because you’re particularly charming, but because if I don’t
put a stop to this, she’s going to tell Azrael next, and that lunkhead
knocking on my door, I don’t need. So, briefly, I had a hunch this
Parallel Mayhem was running something just a little bigger than a hacker
trap. I have an old friend who has an old friend in MI-6…”

“Whoa, like James Bond MI-6?”

“With less glamour and more paperwork, yes. My friend hooked me up
with one of their Gotham agents who gave me the rundown on the intelligence
community soap opera: what the CIA kept from the FBI, what the FBI kept from
the DOJ. Treasury and Army Intelligence seem to be ‘special friends’ but in
a non-creepy brotherly way: patriotism, cooperation for its own sake,
politics stops at the water, that kind of thing—unlike the NSA and National
Reconnaissance Office, which apparently share the inter-agency synergy that
dare not speak its name. Oh, and absolutely nobody but the DEA is down
market enough to talk to the GCPD.”

“This is the coolest CaseRep I ever heard,” Tim laughed.

“The coolest what?!”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“Some goddamn Bat-crimefighter-thing, is that what you just said?”

“No ma’am,” Tim shook his head.

“You can leave now.”

“Oh come on! You can’t cut me off there, it was just getting good!”

“It’s really not all that interesting,” Selina sighed. “The
Department of Justice, Navy Intelligence, and GCPD had the biggest reasons
to, shall we say, ‘count the silver’ after the FBI came to dinner. I
picked Navy Intelligence, went in after hours, picked the office of a
Lieutenant Commander Glint. I just liked the sound of it. Went
into his office and generated a memo hinting that the FBI was developing
this worm to infiltrate everything that plugs into a socket, and do we
really think they’re just trying to catch a hacker or are they planning to
spy on us? Went back to the FBI—by now I was getting really bored with
their sorry excuse for building security. Found an office on a floor I
hadn’t been to before, Special Agent Who-Remembers. Had him send a
memo how the Navy is snooping around Sibyl Snare and are we sure everything
is as it should be. Naturally once they all started poking around,
Cummings’s work comes under all kinds of scrutiny and he’s busted.”

“And this Glint and Agent Whozzit that supposedly got the ball rolling,
they get the credit so they’re not going to deny anything.”

“Pfft, who cares? I’m thinking those places are so clogged with
bureaucracy, I doubt anyone looked to see where the paper trail started.”

“That is still seriously cool,” Tim said admiringly.

“It is?”

“Totally wicked.”

“I always considered it a snooze. No chases, no gunfire, no yummy
aftermath with a honked off cape. Just picking locks, sending memos,
and geeks poking into computer code while I was home eating Haagen Daaz.”

“Best CaseRep ever.”

*** YEARS LATER ***

Selina laughed, delighted.

“Look, Tim, I enjoy tweaking his nose as much as the next person. I
always have, it’s practically my trademark. But if you reference Robin
in this paper of yours, his head will explode. Just use the Huntress
story, it makes the same point.”

“It does? What point is that?” Tim gaped.

“When it’s really important, when the city or the world is at risk, we
can put our law and order differences aside and work together. When
that happens, those of us on the villain side of the equation behave like
civilized adults with a job to do, while your lot carry on like petulant
teenagers, griping in the back seat because you’re being dragged to a family
reunion when you wanted to stay home and play video games with your
friends.”

“That’s the point?! What kind of point is that?”

“Accurate! So pin the tail on Huntress, let her come off like the
bad-tempered, short-sighted ingrate. Robin is still cuddly and
non-threatening, and maybe we can get through the semester without you
making Bruce’s head explode.”

“I am not cuddly,” Tim said through clenched teeth. Then he
stopped, tilted his head back as if staring at something behind Selina, and
then knit his brow. “Wow, full circle.”

“What is?” Selina asked.

“Remember that day? ‘Cuddly and non-threatening,’ you remember what
I asked you that day?”

Selina thought for a minute, remembering.

“Oracle’s FBI hacker,” she said finally.

“No, not that part. I wanted you to tell me about it so I’d know
you had your guard down with us, the same way Bruce did with you. I
asked for you to tell Tim Drake something Robin would never find out as
Robin. So y’know, now you’re giving Tim cover to know stuff only Robin
should know—full circle.”

“It sure is,” Selina chuckled.

“See, my big thought that day was how...damn. See, I found him
watching that show you like with the big cats, and it was right after the
protocols, and all I could think was how you guys were going to split up in
a month after all these big confidences are exchanged, and then in that
crazed animosity of a breakup... What the hell did I know, anyway. I
was still on Quelle sorte de fromage aimez-vous avec jambon,
but I knew everything there was to know about the crazy things people do
after a split.”

“We all miss her, Tim.”

“Full circle all right. Couple years later, you and Bruce are still
together and I tell Steph—”

“Stop. Right. There.”

“Cuddly and non-threatening, yeah, that’s me. Bruce is
cuddly and non-threatening. I’m the freakin’ Terminator. You
know what the last thing I said to her was?”

“My whip is right in the closet, young man. You keep this up—”

“You can’t say it’s not true, Selina.”

“That you’re the Terminator? Yes, I can say that’s not true.
I can also say this: Tim, you’ve always been the most normal one around
here, and in your case, ‘normal’ isn’t overrated. You’re fine.
As for Stephanie, don’t tell me the last thing you said to her, tell me your
best memory of her.”

“The best ones are kinda private,” Tim said with a blush. “But she
really liked the idea of you and Bruce. Total romantic there.
The night I told her, we were hanging around outside 30 Rock. Sting
was appearing on SNL, so officially we were ‘crowd control,’ but really,
Steph was just hoping to see him…”